


What Shatner's New Book Tells Us About K/S:  An Essay

by WeirdLittleStories



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Deductions from information in Shatner's book, Essay, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 23:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6260110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeirdLittleStories/pseuds/WeirdLittleStories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William Shatner's book, <i>Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man,</i> sheds some light on the question of Kirk's relationship with Spock and how it came to be – as <a href="http://fanlore.org/wiki/K/S">Fanlore</a> says – "the first slashed couple of media fandom." This is a brief essay, not a story, explaining what conclusions can be drawn from the book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Shatner's New Book Tells Us About K/S:  An Essay

* * *

William Shatner's new biography of Leonard Nimoy – _Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man_ – makes the origin of Kirk-Spock slash much clearer.  
  
Some TOS fans have seen Kirk and Spock as lovers (this is called "K/S" or "slash"), even as the standard interpretation holds that they are friends.  
  
The theory that Kirk and Spock are lovers engenders strong feelings on both sides of the question, with some TOS fans passionately opposed to K/S and others equally passionate in favor of it.  
  
I've heard some people in the anti-K/S camp say that it's completely obvious that Kirk and Spock are friends, and anyone who thinks otherwise is clearly nuts. I've heard some people in the pro-K/S camp say that Kirk and Spock were planned as gay lovers from the very beginning, and Shatner, Nimoy, and Roddenberry were all in on it, and the only reason it wasn't overt was because of 60's censorship.  
  
Then there's the middle ground, those people who see that the text of the episodes says "friend" or "brother" but who also see that Kirk often looks at Spock with a teasingly flirtatious glance. A lot of the people in this middle ground have been of two minds about K/S or have wondered if maybe the K/S'ers had a point or have thought the guys were friends but wondered why Shatner chose such flirtatious facial expressions and body language.  
  
William Shatner's new book makes it all clear. In the book, he says three illuminating things:  
  
**1.** Shatner says that he never had a close friend until he and Leonard Nimoy became friends, and Leonard was the only real friend he ever had.  
  
**2.** Although the subtitle of the book talks about a "50-year" friendship, Shatner makes it clear that he and Leonard Nimoy were rivals and/or friendly colleagues during TOS and didn't become actual _friends_ until TMP or later.  
  
**3.** Shatner says that the only close relationships he had besides the one with Leonard – which didn't begin until the late 70's – were the relationships with his wives.  
  
We know that it's standard acting technique for actors to use a memory from their own lives in order to portray their character's emotions. While the actor may never have been in the character's _situation_ before, there are a limited number of emotions, and the actor will have felt an emotion similar to the one the situation evokes in the character. You've almost certainly never encountered a salt vampire who's masquerading as a former girlfriend before – as McCoy does in "The Man Trap" – but you've almost certainly felt love, nostalgia, disbelief, fear, and horror before. :-) Actors are supposed to use their memories of times when they felt a similar emotion in order to portray those of their characters.  
  
But by his own admission, at the time TOS was filmed, Shatner _had never had a close friend._ He didn't know what the emotions of deep friendship felt like. The only model he had for what a close relationship looked like was his relationship with his wife, so when he was asked to portray a deep, serious friendship between Kirk and Spock, the memories he had to fall back on were the memories of loving his wife.  
  
So what can we conclude about K/S? On the one hand, it seems very unlikely that Shatner and Nimoy intended to portray Kirk and Spock as gay lovers. On the other hand, it's clear that the people who are picking up romantic overtones from Kirk's face and body language are seeing something real. At the time TOS was filmed, Shatner had never had a close friend, so he couldn't portray "best friend" in his acting and fell back on his knowledge of romantic relationships to close the gap.  
  
Of course, the actor is not the character. Kirk is a hero, and Shatner is just an actor, albeit an unusually passionate and expressive actor. Spock is a Vulcan, and Nimoy was delightfully human, albeit an unusually intelligent and talented human.  
  
And yet Shatner's limitations as a human being resulted in his adding a dimension to his performance that he probably did not intend but that has given a lot of joy to a lot of people (judging by the number of people who read and write K/S fan fiction :-D).  
  
Like most art and like all great art, TOS is ambiguous enough and nuanced enough to bear many interpretations, and each viewer can find what he or she wishes to find somewhere in that ambiguity.  
  
So those who want to see Kirk and Spock as lovers can continue to do so – they will no matter what I say, anyway. :-) And those who have always thought that Kirk and Spock were non-romantic friends can continue to see them in that light – they also will no matter what I say, anyway. But for those people – like me – who've had one foot in each camp and who've thought that Kirk and Spock were _probably_ friends, but Kirk seemed awfully _flirty_ for a friend, well, now we have an explanation for how that came about. :-)  
  
Regardless of whether Kirk and Spock are seen as friends or are seen as lovers, their relationship is very close and is very important to both men. And the affection, respect, and loyalty that they have for one another is one reason why – one very important reason why – people continue to be drawn to TOS, fifty years after it was first made.  


 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This should be obvious from the essay, but I'll say it explicitly, anyway, just to be perfectly clear: I'm perfectly happy for people to see Kirk and Spock as lovers, if people enjoy that, and I'm perfectly happy for people to see Kirk and Spock as friends, if people enjoy that. This essay is intended mostly for people who saw both sides and wondered how such a situation could come about.
> 
> 2\. I'll say it a second time, because it's so important: The actor is not the character! William Shatner has a number of limitations that James Kirk does NOT have, and it's the genius of good actors to make us believe in their characters, even when the actor could never be or do whatever the character is being and doing. Jim Kirk is clearly a great man, whereas people's opinions of Shatner are all over the map. :-)
> 
> 3\. I'm using "TOS" to mean the three years of the TV show. And as most fans know, "TMP" means _Star Trek: The Motion Picture._
> 
> 4\. I have a chronic illness that leaves me non-functional more days than not. I will try to respond to any polite comments I receive; unfortunately, my good intentions are frequently thwarted by my poor health. (I do read them all with great attention, even when my health doesn't permit me to reply.)
> 
> 5\. Thanks for reading!


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